


Problems & Solutions, or...

by Saathi1013



Series: Lorem Ipsum [3]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Abduction, Domestic, Engagement, Implied Torture, Light Bondage, Medical Kink, OT3, Other, POV Female Character, Recovery, Threesome - F/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-15
Updated: 2010-12-15
Packaged: 2017-11-08 03:32:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/438668
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saathi1013/pseuds/Saathi1013
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>FULL TITLE: "Problems & Solutions, or: A Brief Assortment Of Difficulties One Faces When Dating A Military Doctor (While You Both Carry On A Sordid Three-Way Affair With His Sociopathic Flatmate Who Is Also A Detective)"  </p><p>...which is self-explanatory, really.</p><p>Contains off-screen violence and recovery from same.  </p><p>[This fic/series is canonical for BBC's Sherlock, Season ONE only;  it's wildly divergent otherwise.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	Problems & Solutions, or...

**Author's Note:**

  * For [livia_carica](https://archiveofourown.org/users/livia_carica/gifts).



> Primary beta & britpick: Caoilin_Noir; final series polish provided by Mazarin 221b.
> 
> Special thanks to Carolyn_Claire, AccioAyla, Atlin_Merrick, MarieLikesToDraw, & BlanketForYourShock.

The first thing that surprises Sarah – no, wait, the first thing was that Sherlock liked watching them shag, and the second was that Sherlock wanted to join in, so it's actually the  _third_  – is that Sherlock actually sleeps. She can't count the number of times that she's gone over to their flat before retiring with John to the bedroom upstairs, and returned to the common area the next morning to find Sherlock precisely where she'd last seen him. Hunched over the microscope in the kitchen, usually, or curled despondently in his armchair with the violin discarded at his feet.  
  
And yet, the morning after their first  _Experiment_ , as Sherlock had called it, Sarah wakes to find herself sandwiched between both men, sore in exquisite ways and blessedly snug. “Oh,” she says, staring down at the mop of raven curls that spill across her shoulder. She feels heat creep across her face, remembering everything from the night before.  
  
One pale mercurial eye slits open at her and someone's hand tightens on her hip.  
  
“Go back to sleep,” John mutters at her ear. “Work's only a half day today.”  
  
She casts her gaze around the room but doesn't find a clock, just bookshelf after bookshelf, crammed full. The nearest one seems to have school textbooks on it, interspersed with ragged, yellowing notebooks.  _Probably filled with nothing but 'MY TEACHER IS AN IDIOT' scrawled over and over,_  she thinks absently. The night stand has nothing on it save for a half-empty box of nicotine patches and a familiar re-purposed cigar box. She blushes again.  
  
“It's a quarter past eight,” Sherlock says, low and quiet. “We could sleep for at least another hour and a half if you ceased  _thinking_ so loudly.”  
  
At this, John's head pops up over her other shoulder, rumpled endearingly and completely bewildered. Sarah watches realisation dawn, and bites her lip. “Um,” he says, clearly at a loss.  
  
“Not you, too,” Sherlock groans, rolling onto his back and flinging an arm over his face. “First you both exhaust me, now you  _wake_ me, likely for an excruciatingly dull conversation that will conclude with, ' _yes, we all enjoyed ourselves and wouldn't mind if it happened again._ ' There, I've saved us two hours that we can use for  _sleep._ ”  
  
John ducks his head to hide his smile against Sarah's arm. She raises her eyebrows at him – a silent query of ' _Is he right?_ ' - and John nods, looking abashed. She smiles reassuringly and strokes his cheekbone with her fingertips.  
  
“Oh, for the love of God,” Sherlock says, voice rising to a normal pitch. “ _Fine._  But if we're going to have more sex, I should warn you that my knees are  _killing_  me this morning.”  
  
Sarah gapes at him, then bursts out laughing. She doesn't know any other man who's so put out by the prospect of getting off. “Don't you start with  _me_ ,” she says. “I've got sore muscles I can only name because I'm a  _doctor._ ”  
  
Sherlock starts naming them to prove her wrong. But it involves putting his hands in interesting places, so she lets him win.  
  
***  
  
Not much changes. Sherlock still summons John via text at work or during their dates – dates that he refuses to join. “I'm not _courting_  either of you,” he informs Sarah when she invites him. “I can't be bothered with that kind of nonsense.” And he'd gone off to pester the poor girl working the mortuary, a length of rusty chain looped round his shoulder.  
  
However, he does start texting Sarah.  
  
 _How long would it take a diabetic to fall into a coma if they're only given bread and water?_  
  
Sarah stares at her mobile in the middle of the market, then starts to type a response. He texts her before she's finished, with the answers she was about to request.  _Type II. Generic wheat bread and bottled water. 56 y.o. M, 20 st. John is out visiting Harry, not answering._  
  
She thinks about it, gives him an estimate, and goes back to picking out frozen vegetables. Her phone chimes again five minutes later.  
  
 _Pick up an extra carton of milk; Harry's fallen off the wagon, so John will forget._  
  
He's  _impossible._  
  
Two days later, Sarah's having a quick lunch with John in a small café two doors down from the surgery when she gets another text. She flips open her mobile and almost drops her fork.  
  
“Problem?” John asks. She shows him the screen and watches his face redden.  
  
 _Have you two had it off at work yet? It's a nice image, white coats and rubber gloves and all those pre-sterilised *tools* at hand..._  
  
She and John avoid making eye contact for the rest of the afternoon. He runs into her as she's coming out of the supply closet after hours. She glances down at the coat over his arm. “Good, you found one," she says.  
  
"Yeah," he replies, ducking his head and grinning.  "I was just going to-"  
  
"I have a handbag,” she points out, suppressing her own smile.  
  
“Ah, good idea,” he says, eyes alight. “So what's the plan of attack?”  
  
They get home to find Sherlock already tied to the bed by both ankles and one wrist, his free hand holding a book. Sarah pulls it away and John gets the last restraint in place while Sherlock  _laughs._  
  
Infuriating, impossible man.  
  
***  
  
John is all warmth, like a hearth fire, occasionally banked when he's knackered, but still steady and comforting. Sarah thinks she's starting to fall in love with him. She doesn't know what that means, when there's another man in their lives, but she likes it.  
  
It slips out one morning, when she's got her coat and shoes on, about to leave their flat. John's kissing her goodbye – it's his day off but she has to work – and she pulls back, arms looped round his neck, and sighs, “Oh, I love you.”  
  
Sherlock scoffs loudly over whatever appalling thing is preoccupying him in the kitchen, and she flinches.  
  
John flips him the bird without looking and kisses her again, saying with a smile, “Love you too. Now go before I keep you here.” She smiles back, warm clear to her toes, and leaves.  
  
As the door closes, she sees John throw one of the small sofa cushions across the room towards the kitchen. There's a crash and a shout, and she suppresses her giggle as she passes Mrs. Hudson on the stairs.  
  
***  
  
If John is a hearth fire, Sherlock is a blowtorch. Brilliant and focussed and dangerous to look at directly or handle without protective gear.  
  
Sometimes, most distressingly, he's  _off,_  like his air and fuel has been cut when that mind of his isn't being applied to anything. She takes to bringing him puzzles. He sneers at Sudoku and cipher books, starts from the back in gradated crossword collections and gets five puzzles half-finished before throwing the whole thing out.  
  
Eventually she hands him a clipping from a newspaper – one of the obituaries. “Pretend it's a murder,” she says. “Who did it?”  
  
This works three or four times before one of them turns out to be an  _actual_  murder, and then she doesn't have the heart for it any more.  
  
***  
  
Sarah doesn't spend all her free time at their flat, she couldn't  _possibly._  It's very much a bachelor pad, with strange  _things_ everywhere, some of them possibly achieving sentience and discovering democracy. And she  _likes_  cooking when she doesn't accidentally defrost a bag of ears instead of the chicken breasts.  
  
From what  _she_  can tell, neither of them can actually cook worth a damn. So once a week, she makes a nice dinner. John always attends, and when Sherlock doesn't (which is to say: most of the time), she boxes up two sets of leftovers.  
  
“Does he ever eat?” she asks one morning, sending John off one morning with an armful of packets.  
  
“Every now and then,” he responds, kissing her on the cheek. “But he never lets me eat his share of your cooking.”  
  
She smiles, unaccountably pleased at this. “Oh. Well that's all right.”  
  
***  
  
The one time she cooks anything in their kitchen after the Ear Incident (which had ended in Sherlock yelling at  _her,_  of all things) is after both men fall into the Thames and get miserably ill. By this point, the surgery and DI Lestrade are right next to each other on her speed dial, so she calls them all off work. Lestrade actually asks if she'll take a photo with her mobile and send it to him. She lies and tells him that her phone doesn't have a camera, and hangs up while he's still laughing.  
  
She looks for soup. She finds precisely one tin, and it's bulging with botulism. This might be on purpose, but she really doesn't want to ask. She puts it in an empty cardboard box so that Sherlock will have a record of the splatter pattern just in case, and transfers it to the top of the cabinets.  
  
Then she goes shopping, stealing Sherlock's card from John's wallet. She does not respond to the six texts she gets in ten minutes, the last of which simply says  _AM DYING. BRING BISCUITS._  She buys actual food, cold medicine in three different flavours, and a thermometer that hasn't been used on anything questionable. Also towels for the same reason.  
  
She comes back to find Sherlock on the couch with Mrs. Hudson tutting over him. “I've got it, thanks,” Sarah says. “Sorry if they were a bother.”  
  
“Oh, you shouldn't have to manage them both, dear,” Mrs. Hudson says. Sherlock makes an awful phlegmy noise that might have been a laugh. Sarah glares daggers at him when Mrs. Hudson's back is turned.  
  
“I  _am_  a doctor,” Sarah points out. “And it's just a cold. Nothing earth-shattering, despite what Sherlock might have told you.”  
  
“All right, if you're  _sure,_ ” Mrs. Hudson replies dubiously. “I'll just help put these things away...” Sarah leaves her puttering about the kitchen while she forcibly removes Sherlock from the couch and hauls him back to his bed.  
  
John's there, huddled miserably beneath every blanket in the flat save the one that Sherlock's using as a cape. “Oh, to hell with it,” Sarah says, and shoves Sherlock in beside him.  
  
“Oh,” Mrs. Hudson says from the doorway. “Will they be all right, like that?”  
  
“Shared body heat,” Sarah says, tucking them in firmly and snaring the dozen or so half-drunk mugs of tea littering every available flat surface. “Best thing for them. And I'm not traipsing up and down the stairs every ten minutes.”  
  
“If you say so,” Mrs. Hudson says. “I put everything in the left-hand cabinet. It was the only one that looked decent.”  
  
“Thank you,” Sarah says, smiling. It was the one she'd cleaned and disinfected before she'd left, condensing everything into the other shelves and drawers. If Sherlock shouts at her  _this_  time, she's putting the tin of germ warfare beneath his bed and keeping John at her flat till it goes off. She  _does_  know how to organise a laboratory, after all.  
  
She gets cooking. Soup, beans and toast, and tea are all simple enough, but when fielding pathetic calls for help from another room every two minutes, it's an Olympic event.  
  
“You shouldn't be doing all this,” John says dolefully after she takes their temperature and gets them upright enough to eat with trays balanced atop the many strata of quilts. “You're going to get yourself sick.”  
  
“I'll have gotten sick either way,” she points out, kissing his unruly hair, “working at the surgery.”  
  
"I hope I get well first,” he says. “Heaven help us if Sherlock's the one playing nursemaid.”  
  
“I hate you all,” Sherlock says from the other side of the bed.  
  
Sarah makes a face at him. “No you don't. And the way you take care of yourself, Sherlock, you'll be in bed for a month.”  
  
She's wrong. She wakes up two evenings later, her head spinning with fever, the only light in the room coming from John's laptop, Sherlock's profile in sharp silhouette against it. She groans and sits up. He's at her side in an instant, blissfully cool hand on her forehead.  
  
“Not good,” he pronounces. “And John's got another twelve hours of it.” He bundles her up in her arms and takes her to the bed. “Don't tell John,” he whispers, brushing her hair back from her face. She's already dropping off to sleep when Sherlock presses the ghost of a kiss at her temple.  
  
***  
  
“What are the rules?” Sarah asks, curled up with John on the couch at her flat. They're watching reruns of Doctor Who series one, which they can't do with Sherlock present or he calls people 'stupid apes' for weeks.  
  
“Hm?” John asks absently. “Rules?”  
  
“Well,  _rules_ ,” she replies, hedging. “Sherlock's had a slow week, so he asked if I wanted to learn how to get out of restraints tomorrow night, in case something happens to me again. I think it's a ruse.” She hopes it is. Better than the alternative, which is that Sherlock thinks she'll get kidnapped again, and she dislikes that option immensely.  
  
“Ah. Well. I could call off seeing the boys, if you like,” John says, clearly torn.  
  
Sarah shakes her head emphatically. “No, no, you haven't seen some of them since Afghanistan. It'll be good for you to get out.” _Somewhere that doesn't involve your girlfriend or corpses,_  she adds mentally. One makes him boring, and the other makes him mad. He needs something in between. “I can tell him no.”  
  
John groans dramatically. “No, no, it's fine, really.” He kisses her, grinning. “I just hate to miss the show.” She rolls her eyes. “I trust you.  _Both_  of you. Do whatever you like, I know you're not going to run off on me with Sherlock, of all people.”  
  
“ _No_  people,” she corrects, crawling onto his lap. “I'm not going to run off with  _anybody,_  d'you hear me? I  _love_  you.”  
  
John's grinning up at him as if he's won the lottery. He does that a lot, every time she says it. “I love you too,” he says, and there go the butterflies again.  
  
***  
  
John didn't miss anything, as it turns out. Sarah and Sherlock don't actually get up to anything until he gets home. Despite all the begging she'd done once Sherlock had wound that carefully-knotted rope between her thighs.  
  
On the upside, she knows how to pick a handcuff lock now.  
  
***  
  
Apparently Sherlock has a  _brother_. She's heard John mention him every now and then (usually with a string of expletives), but she hadn't dared believe it until she meets the man.  
  
He's in the living room when she wakes up late one morning; John's away at work but it's her day off. Sherlock is sitting at his microscope, ignoring the stranger in John's chair. “Oh,” she says, pulling John's robe around her. “I'm sorry, I'll just go back up-”  
  
“Not at all,” the man says, standing. “You must be Sarah.” His smile is too smooth, too practised for it to be genuine.  
  
“Run away,” Sherlock says, not looking up.  
  
“Don't be rude,” the man scolds. “My name is Mycroft Holmes.” He holds out one hand; the other is leaning on an umbrella. It hasn't rained for days.  
  
“A pleasure,” she says, smiling warmly, taking his hand.  
  
He doesn't let go; instead he leans in, expression suddenly severe. “I came in the hopes of speaking to you, actually,” he says in a grim tone. “Were you aware that your fiancée is sleeping with my brother?”  
  
There is a clatter from the kitchen as she pulls her hand away, genuinely taken aback. “ _What-?_ ”  
  
Sherlock's in the room, looking furious. “You bleeding cunt!  _He hasn't bought the ring yet!_ ” he hisses, as close to violence as Sarah's ever seen him outside one of his 'adventures.'  
  
“Is he really?” Sarah asks, holding up one hand to Sherlock, almost brushing his arm. He spares her a glance and a little nod. “I'll have to act surprised when he asks, then.” She turns back to Mycroft. “Was that all you wanted?”  
  
The brother looks genuinely perplexed, but his expression smooths out quickly. “Ah. Yes. I was...  _concerned_  for my brother's emotional well-being, when I discovered he was attached to someone whose affections were invested elsewhere.” His shoulders square off even straighter atop his spine, if that's possible. “As I seem to have been mistaken, let me wish you good luck on your impending nuptials.” He gives her a short bow and leaves.  
  
Sherlock bounds to the window, making sure his brother vacates the building, then doubles over in laughter.  
  
“What? Why are you laughing? That was  _awful,_ ” Sarah says.  
  
It takes him a moment to compose himself. “I pulled one over on my brother!” He collapses into a chair, dissolving into guffaws.  
  
“Does that mean he knows about...  _us?_ ” She tucks John's robe more tightly around her body, feeling exposed.  
  
Sherlock waves her off. “What? Oh, yes. But don't worry. He's discreet.”  
  
Sarah still frets about it until John gets home. She tells him everything but the bit about the engagement. “Of  _course_  he did,” John says in response, adding a long string of cursing that may not all be English. “And Sherlock's right. Mycroft's only concern – aside from acting like a Bond villain and taking over the world – is that his brother isn't going to self-destruct on him at any moment. If he knows there are two people that care for Sherlock, all the better in his mind.”  
  
“Oh,” she replies, “and we do, don't we.” It's not a question, but John slants her a crooked smile and nods.  
  
“Someone has to,” he points out. He's absolutely right, but she's already thinking,  _Engagement means marriage means living together which means what? A house with three bedrooms and a laboratory in the basement? And, oh,_ God,  _what about children?_  Her mother will have fits if they don't give her grandchildren.  
  
She curls up against John and sighs. Time enough to think of that later.  
  
***  
  
John never gets the chance to ask her. Moriarty surfaces again, and makes good on his threats. John disappears from his flat sometime between four on a Thursday afternoon and one the next morning.  
  
Sherlock spends three days frantically tearing around London, following one red herring after the other.  Sarah assumes that they’re caught up in a case, and truth be told, she’s being run a bit ragged at work.  So she doesn't find out until the third day, when Sherlock shows up at the surgery, looking  _demolished._  “What on earth-?” she asks, steering him to a seat before he falls over.  
  
“John's gone,” he says, and before she realises what she's doing, she hits him as hard as she can with her open palm, in plain sight of all the patients.  
  
“Why didn't you  _tell_  me?” she asks. She might be yelling, she's not sure.  
  
“I texted you...” he says, one hand at his burning cheek.  
  
“Texting  _Have you seen John today?_  is not actually telling me that he's been  _abducted!_ ” One of the other doctors is at their side, saying something, but Sarah's blood is pounding in her ears, drowning out everything. All she hears is  _John's gone. John's gone. John's gone._  
  
Everything else is a blur. Oh, good, now she's  _crying._  It's the pool explosion all over again. She hates this, feeling like a silly child, but all she can feel is an  _ache_  in every bone and nerve.   
  
Grief is a little like teleportation; one minute she's shouting at Sherlock in the surgery waiting room, the next she's running out of tears in his flat. The only consolation is that she's not alone; Sherlock's beside her, awkwardly holding her to him with one arm over her shoulders.  
  
She straightens and sniffles, dragging the end of one sleeve across her face. “All right,” she says, forcing her voice to stay even, “what can I do?”  
  
“We can't do anything,” Sherlock says, voice brittle. “I have been informed by Detective Inspector Lestrade that I am under house arrest for twenty-four hours for concealing a crime from the authorities. He only put it off so I could get you.”  
  
“Oh. Did you want me to do your legwork for you?” She hasn't tagged along on many cases – not voluntarily, at least – but she's willing and able to do what Sherlock can't.  
  
He looks appalled. “No.  _God,_  no.” She pulls away.  
  
“If you don't think I'm capable,” she says bitterly. He grabs her hands in his.  
  
“Sarah,” he says, deadly serious, “ _no one_  can do what I do.”   
  
He looks shocked when she laughs in his face. Spotting his affronted expression, she swallows the hysteria and squeezes his hands. “I'm sorry, I know,” she says. “You're brilliant and amazing, really you are. It's just funny, that the one man who can find my... that can find John is the one man who's prevented from doing so.”  
  
“That's not funny,” he says. “How is that  _funny?_ ”  
  
“Right now, that's the only thing that is,” she replies. “How about the internet? Have there been any emails lately? Cryptic comments on either blog?”  
  
“They took our laptops. And my mobile,” he informs her.  
  
“Of course they did,” she says, giving a short bark of laughter. “At least they're thorough.” Sherlock sneers at this, and she holds up one hand. “No, I know. I could get my laptop from home, but they'd likely confiscate it, wouldn't they. Damn.”  
  
“They left your mobile,” he points out.  
  
“It doesn't have anything special on it, it just does calling and texting and has a rubbish camera on the front.” She leans forward, scrubbing her palms across her face. “I'm sure Lestrade just left it so he can ring us for updates.”  
  
“How generous of him,” Sherlock comments, voice dry as dust.  
  
They settle on watching the television, Sherlock flicking through channels so fast that she gets a headache. By the time the sun sets, she feels drunk with drowsiness and worn-off adrenaline. “Right,” she says, standing, Sherlock's hands still clasped with hers. “Come on. Take me to bed.”  
  
He recoils as if she's a stranger, saying that to him. “You can't be serious.”  
  
“Not for that,” she says. “But I can't just sit out here and chew my nails down with worry. I want to go up to John's room, have you curl up next to me, and we can pretend we're waiting for John to get home from work.”  
  
“I don't  _do_  that,” he says, standing anyway. “I don't muddle my brain with false realities just because they're more pleasant than the alternative.”  
  
“It could be true,” she says, her voice thin even to her own ears. She lifts their entwined hands between them, rests her forehead against the knuckles. “Just... pretend you pretend? At least until I fall asleep?”  
  
Without another word, he leads her upstairs to John's room, curls up next to her, and brings the side of the quilt over them. She buries herself in his warmth, in the lingering scent of John, until exhaustion claims her.  
  
***  
  
When she wakes up, John isn't there. Neither is Sherlock, though he's left her his scarf, tangled in her hands. She brings it downstairs with her, looking for tea with the kind of determination one can only muster in a hopeless situation.  
  
She stops short, seeing Sally Donovan at the kitchen table. “Is there any word?” Sarah asks, wringing the scarf in her fingers.  
  
“No,” Sally says, her mouth twisting. “Lestrade let the freak out after only twelve hours; they asked me to stay behind to keep an eye on you, just in case.”  
  
“Oh.” Sarah loops the scarf round her neck, glad for its familiar presence, and gets the kettle. “Would you like some?”  
  
“No, thanks.” Sally is silent for a long moment. “Listen, I have to ask. We went through the flat earlier for evidence... are you sneaking round with Holmes behind Watson's back?”  
  
It takes every effort not to drop the kettle in the sink, or turn round to throw it at Sally. “No,” Sarah says, keeping her voice calm and even. “Not that it's any of your business.”  
  
"Well. Anderson suggested... I mean, if Watson had found out, he might have. I don't know, gone willingly.”  
  
Sarah lets the kettle clatter into the sink, spinning round in a rage. “How dare you! John would  _never-_ ”  
  
Sally is looking at her with raised eyebrows. “As you say. But it's not John's scarf you're wearing, is it?” Sarah reminds herself to close her gaping mouth before she starts to look like a fool. “And I know there's only one bed upstairs. When Sherlock came down he still had pillow-creases on his face.”  
  
“Sherlock doesn't give you people enough credit,” Sarah says bitterly, retrieving the kettle and transferring it to a burner. “You're even stupider than he thinks. Sherlock and I are  _friends_ ; he stayed upstairs with me because – shockingly enough – I am having trouble sleeping. I am  _not_  cheating on John with Sherlock, or anyone else for that matter. And John would never, in a million years, go  _willingly_  into the clutches of James Moriarty.”   
  
She turns back to fix Sally with a stern look, arms folded. “Now drop that nonsense and tell me what you already know about... the case.” She can't bring herself to call it an abduction, or a -  _godforbid!_  - murder. She can't even do what Sherlock does, but she _does_  have a brain and a set of ears, and maybe if she uses both she can figure out some way to help.  
  
It's certainly better than  _waiting_.  
  
***  
  
John is found in a skip outside an abandoned warehouse. He's in surgery. That's all they'll tell her, and no amount of pleading or flashing her doctor's credentials or Sherlock's bullying will get them any more information.  
  
Sarah sits in the waiting room, feeling as though she's a puppet with her strings cut. Sherlock comes in two hours later, muddy to the knees.  
  
“I didn't find anything useful,” he says curtly, and collapses next to her, streaking a long stripe of muck across the tile with his boot heels. Almost as an afterthought, he hands her a coffee. Sarah takes it, dimly grateful for the warmth on her palms.  
  
They don't say anything for half an hour. She finishes her coffee and takes it to the bin, turning back to find Sherlock looming in her path.  
  
“What are you-?” she says, looking up at his shuttered face.  
  
“Pretending,” he says, grabbing her elbow and pulling her down the hall into an empty room.  
  
“Oh,” she says into his mouth. “Oh. All right.”  
  
It's rough, and it's rushed, and they only pull away what clothing is necessary before he fucks her hard without preparation over the sink in the cramped bathroom. Sarah bites her lip until she tastes blood, watching her breath cloud the mirror, obscuring the reflection of Sherlock's face. He leaves streaks of mud on the back of her calves and she breaks a nail gripping the porcelain sink for leverage.  
  
She doesn't come; she doesn't think she  _could,_  but she's gratified to feel something other than anxiety and grief and rage, even for a few stolen moments. And she's glad she can make Sherlock's mind stutter-stop into blankness just for a second.  
  
When he's done, he runs a wash cloth under warm water and stoops to clean the mud drying on her legs. When it's all gone, his motions slow and stop, and he leans ever so slightly against her. His bowed head is pressed to her knees and the fingers of one hand are curled loosely around the fine bones of her ankle. She tangles her hand in his hair.  
  
“It's all right,” she hears herself say. “It's going to be all right.”  
  
***  
  
John looks like a shell of himself. There are machines hissing and beeping and dripping into him from all directions, and it's almost too much to look at simultaneously. So Sarah focuses on his face, behind the tubes and the tape on his eyelids, and holds his hand.  
  
“This wasn't supposed to happen,” she says eventually. “You're supposed to be a soldier, you awful prat. You're supposed to be able to handle yourself.” She's glad Sherlock and Harry are outside bickering, giving her this time alone. Tears are leaking down her face in a steady trickle, and she scrubs them away with her knuckles. “You're supposed to be fine and healthy and saving up for an engagement ring. I'm going to say yes, if that helps any.”  
  
This is the moment in all the films where his eyelids flicker, and he says something clever because he's been listening all along. In films, he'd wake up, and everything would be fine, and a joyous montage ensues to one of the latest feel-good pop hits.  
  
But he has tape on his eyelids and a tube down his throat, and he's in a medically-induced coma while his body recovers from the damage. He can't hear anything and he's not going to wake up. And Sarah can't stand modern pop music.  
  
Instead, the door swings open, Sherlock and Harry still arguing heatedly. Sarah wipes her face again and busies herself with John's chart. She doesn't really want to know, but she'd rather face grim reality than  _not_  know.  
  
***  
  
John wakes up a week later. Sarah's not there for it; she's at work trying to keep herself busy and retain the good will of the other partners. Her mobile bleeps at her in the middle of a consult, even though she's supposed to leave it in her locker.  
  
 _John awake._  the text says.  _Asking for you._  
  
Relief floods through her, and she's out the door in a flash, sparing only a brief word over her shoulder to the receptionist at the front desk.  
  
***  
  
There is an awful lot of recovery to do, and John spends most of it sleeping. “I hate this part,” he says to her hoarsely. “My brain is mush from drugs and I never know what day it is.” She feeds him ice chips slowly. Sherlock is behind her, looking out the window as though thoroughly unconcerned, only the tense line of his mouth betraying him. “I close my eyes and you're here, I open them and you're gone and everything's dark and I  _hurt._ ”  
  
“Hush,” she says. “Just rest.”  
  
***  
  
Sarah takes John home as soon as they let her, bringing him to her flat because she doesn't want him to have to face the place where he's been abducted three times running. Sherlock grumbles, but her bed is bigger and her place is cleaner. John doesn't need an infection on top of everything else.  
  
She frets through her first day at work after John settles in. When she comes home, her living room is a wreck, books and papers scattered everywhere. She rushes to the bedroom to find both John and Sherlock in the bed, laptop discarded to one side.  
  
Sherlock has one arm carefully cradling John's head and they're kissing, slow and careful and deep. Sherlock's other hand is moving steadily beneath the covers. It's almost  _tender,_  the way he looks down at John, and it strikes her to the bone with an ache she can't describe. “Ah,” she says, at a loss, strangely feeling like an intruder. “Sorry. I'll just.”  
  
John tears his mouth from Sherlock's and looks at her with pleading eyes. “No,” he says, one hand fighting free of the covers to reach for her.  
  
“Don't be stupid,” Sherlock says at the same instant. “Come here.” She takes a hesitant step towards them, then squares her shoulders. Sherlock's right; she's being silly. She strips down to her underthings and climbs into bed on John's other side.  
  
They are very, very gentle with John. When he drops off to sleep, they retreat to the living room.  
  
They aren't gentle with each other.   
  
It's the only thing keeping Sarah from weeping outright, though one or two tears drop onto Sherlock's chest before he drags her up and licks them away.  
  
***  
  
Physiotherapy is  _brutal._  Sarah keeps reminding herself that for all that it's difficult to watch, it's even worse for John.  
  
“I hate this, too,” he pants, leaning against the rail. “And oh my god, I want so many drugs right now.” He huffs a humourless laugh, taking another agonising step.  
  
“You're almost there,” the PT says. “Three more feet.”  
  
“Damn your three feet, I only have the two!” John snaps.  
  
***  
  
It's the best thing in the world when John surprises her at her door one day, using only his cane to keep upright. She drops her bags in the hallway and hugs him.  
  
“Careful,” Sherlock says idly from the armchair. Her living room is still a disaster, but she's managed to convince Sherlock to keep the worst of it in one corner. She's not sure if he's moved in, or just established a secondary headquarters. With the hours he keeps, there's no way to tell for sure. Especially now that he's after Moriarty like a man possessed, gone for days at a time.  
  
“Look what else,” John says, beaming. He fumbles in a pocket and with great effort, goes down to a knee.  
  
“ _What-?_ ” Sarah asks, not comprehending. Sherlock snorts derisively, and she glances over at him.  
  
“Don't gape at me,” Sherlock says. “ _I'm_  not the one proposing.” He leans back to settle in his chair like a hen roosting, his fingers steepled as he watches them.  
  
She looks back at John. “You aren't.”  
  
John beams up at her, flipping open the lid of the little box in his hand. “I am,” he says equably. “Will you?”  
  
“Yes, you idiot,” she says, face aching with how wide she's grinning. “Now get off the floor, for God's sake.”  
  
Turns out, he can't. He pulls her down to kiss her instead, and she's shrieking with laughter by the time he lets her go. Sherlock has to come over to help haul John up, and they all collapse on the sofa in a heap.  
  
“Oh, god, where are we going to  _live?_ ” she asks, staring at the wreckage of her living room.  
  
“We'll come up with something,” John says. He kisses her, mouth lingering and sweet against hers. “These things tend to sort themselves out on their own.”

 

  
\- end of story 2 -

**Author's Note:**

> Future stories in this series will have their own warnings - read the headers carefully before proceeding.


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